


Disordered

by Winterstar



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Angst, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Flashbacks, M/M, PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-16
Updated: 2013-07-16
Packaged: 2017-12-20 10:26:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/886166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Winterstar/pseuds/Winterstar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve starts to suffer flashbacks, flashbacks that bring a whole new reality to light. </p><p> <i>Frigga smiles and while her eyes are warm, she is also critical and weighs what she sees, evaluates it. She is no fool. "You have seen the past and are held by it." She walks around him, studying, peering. It sends shivers up his spine and goose bumps on his flesh. "You are not anchored here, but are fastened to the past. The past does not haunt you, but it is you. You have no way to stay here. You will diminish into the past."</i><br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	Disordered

**Author's Note:**

> Yes I should be writing my four other stories, but this just kind of would not leave me alone.

The first time it happens Steve assumes he’s dreaming so he ignores most of what is going on around him, which isn’t a good idea because being shot at in the middle of a war zone warrants some attention to detail. It’s Bucky who yanks him out of the way of hurling bullets and debris, and has him running full tilt out through the fray and away from one of Schmidt’s burning factories.

When he looks back at it and smells the smoke and feels the heat, he figures he must be having one of those flashbacks everyone tells him he might be subjected to because he has something called post-traumatic stress disorder. He’s disordered according to the latest and greatest therapists and psychologists that SHIELD hired. He agrees.

When he goes to sleep that night, settled down in the middle of a forest in Austria with the Howling Commandoes circled around him and Dum Dum on watch, he thinks that flashbacks are a lot more detailed and substantial than anyone actually told him. In flashbacks do you eat? Do you need to piss? None of it makes sense, but according to those same esteemed doctors, he’s in need of lots and lots of therapy so he accepts it and goes to sleep.

The next morning he wakes up exactly where he should be, in his bed on his floor in the Tower. He thinks nothing of it and shrugs his shoulders. Okay, it wasn’t a flashback; it was a very long complex dream. When he showers, it worries him a little bit that he can smell gunpowder residue and still taste the flavor of the rabbit they caught, skinned, and cooked for dinner in the middle of the forest. Okay, that’s weird, he thinks. Maybe all senses are involved in this PTSD thing?

It happens a second time when he’s on the subway. This is weird he thinks as he steps off the subway and looks around to see what he can only define as a place out of his childhood. It looks, feels, smells, and even sounds like he just walked out of the subway onto a street in 1940s Brooklyn. But, of course that isn’t right because subways run underground, and he would have stepped off onto a platform, and he’d been in Manhattan, not Brooklyn. 

He squints a few times as if he’s trying to clear his vision of what is going on directly in front of him. It’s not right, but he doesn’t know what else to do, so he starts to wander along the street, looking in the shop windows. He smiles when he sees the wooden soldiers and the little Lionel train set. He’d always wanted one for Christmas but they were too poor to afford one. Going into Manhattan and seeing the windows of the shops decorated for Christmas with all the fascinating toys had to serve as good enough. He smiles when he thinks upon it. He never felt disadvantaged as a kid, he’d always felt grateful. He shrugs and that’s when he sees it. 

He’s not big.

He’s small, thin, and frail again. He looks down and thinks this must be some sort of trick or illusion, but then he has to come to accept that he’s in another flashback or dream or something like that. Why would he flashback to being pre-serum? That made no sense. Sure, he had some pretty nasty run-ins with the local bullies, but nothing to worry about, nothing to give him nightmares about. It was par for the course, in his day.

Speaking of which, he finds himself loitering in a back alley. Why the hell did he walk down the damned alley? When he turns around to find his way out a fist clobbers him in the jaw and he spins into the brick wall. He slides down the wall and tumbles into some metal garbage cans. His hands find the lid and he’s up again, using the lid as a shield. It feels like he’s walking through a memory and he follows the lines of the memory like he might trace a picture. 

He goes through the motions, he knows what to say. He thinks he might be filming a movie with a script to follows. When Bucky appears and tells him he thinks that Steve likes getting beaten up, he knows to reply he had the bully on the ropes. He can mouth every word Bucky says, it is strange and off putting. He feels a little dizzy. Then something happens that hadn't before, but he supposes this is how it should be in flashbacks, he falls. He sees Bucky leaning over him, concern written on his face and checking his head to see if he'd hit it.

He closes his eyes and then opens them to realize he's lying face up in Tony's lab with the man himself, cocked eyebrow, and quizzical look on his face saying, "Napping Capsicle?"

He tries to orient himself, but it is a little difficult considering he just landed seventy years in the future or is it from the past again? He finds it quite disconcerting. He sits up and Tony's blathering on about sleeping in the lab and how did he get in here anyway. Steve checks the back of his head and doesn't find a lump or anything.

That's weird. 

He peers at Tony as if Tony might possess the answer to what is going on. He figures he should go lay down. Isn't this whole stress related thing a problem? Shouldn't he rest and take care of himself? He's always been taught to forge ahead, don't be a wimp about it. So he apologizes to Tony, doesn't say it won't happen again because he's obviously sleepwalking or something while he's at it. He disappears back to his floor and settles on the couch, hands on knees. He sits like that until it is twilight. No answers come to him.

It doesn't happen again for a while but when it does it is spectacular. 

He is right in the middle of a date. Not only is it his first date in this new century but it is also his first date he's willing to allow himself with a man and not a woman. It's taken him a while to get to this point, to admit that this interest and attraction means something other than deviant. So when the moment arrives, when he talks with Tony and feels the warm blush of emotion spread through his chest every time Tony offers him that sidelong glance which smolders and heightens his senses, he's unprepared for the blast of cold air that hits his face like a gust from the Arctic. He blinks and realizes Tony's not there, he's gone again, on one of these bizarre flashbacks that consume him and overpower everything in his life - his brain - his senses - his understanding of the world. No wonder it is called a stress disorder. He feels disordered, unorganized, broken, and in pieces. 

But then again, it might be because he's been thrown physically and literally against the twisted windshield of a downed plane, the plane he'd personally piloted into the ocean. He leans over and the pain cuts through him like barbed wire tearing into his flesh. He had never confessed his experience, just how painful and how terrifying the plane crash had been. He remembers reaching up and grabbing for the pocket watch, the one with Peggy's photo, as he fell to the floor as he fragmented and shattered, and bones split and he screamed but the water rushed in. 

No one really understands what it is to drown while freezing. He doesn't like it, not at all. There was darkness then, and there is the same now. He clasps at the fuselage of the plane for purchase. The water pours in from all sides, he can't keep his eyes open because of the force of it, and the pressure drives and crushes against his chest as the plane sinks further. He's scrambling to hold on, to find some open port to breath in air instead of drink in water. The way it feels drowning in cold water is like silent numbness with an overriding sense of pressure; the pressure comes from within and without. It pounds on every nerve inside and outside. The pressure becomes such that he relents to it, succumbs and can no longer worry about the fact that he cannot breathe, his lungs, his autonomic system takes over and he begs for air and all he gets in return is a lungful of water. Cold, frigid water. He freezes from the inside out. 

This time when the episode - because that's what he's calling them now - passes, he looks around and he's somewhere unfamiliar with Tony and Bruce huddled over him. Tony cups Steve’s hand around something and, before he can actually figure out what it is, Tony directs it to his mouth and he feels the cold splash of water on his tongue. He gurgles and spits it out. 

Coughing, he apologizes to Tony whose busy wiping away the water from his sports jacket and cursing obscenely. 

"Pretty substantial little fit you had out there, Captain," Tony says. He takes a napkin from an empty table and Steve realizes they are in the empty banquet hall of the restaurant. "Thank god I cleared most of the regular patrons out of the place before even we came. Otherwise, the PR would be a nightmare."

He still feels the cold of the crash in juxtaposition to the heat from the flames that charred the console. "Wh-what?" He notices Bruce and says, "Doctor?"

"Yeah, Tony called me."

"You were close," Steve says and knows that makes no sense. Why would Bruce be close when Tony and Steve were on a date? 

"Back up plan," Tony says. "Can we just focus on the little breakdown you had?"

"Breakdown? I'm going crazy?" Steve asks and sits back in the chair. Once again a cup is offered and this time he takes it, tentatively sipping the fresh water in the glass. It soothes his burning throat.

“No, no,” Banner says and looks up at Tony as if to confirm his diagnosis. Tony waggles his eyebrows at Bruce as if to tell him to reassure Steve. “You just have a slight issue with nerves.”

“What?” Steve asks. Now he’s even more confused. “I thought I had a flashback.”

“Is that what that was, because one minute I was looking at you and the next you were like not really all there,” Tony says and waves his hands at Steve like with just that gesture Steve could possibly understand what that means.

Before Steve has the presence of mind to ask Tony what is going on, it occurs to him that there is another issue. “You asked Bruce to stay close for a backup plan?”

“I- well- I-. Hey don’t blame me, blame my dickwad father who made me the most insecure person on the planet Earth when it comes to personal relationships.”

“A backup plan?” Steve stands up, straightens his jacket, and excuses himself. He tries not to notice that he still has something clutched in one hand. He knows what it is, with its etched golden surface. When he exits the restaurant and stands in the cold, he looks down to see Peggy’s face in the pocket watch. 

It had never been recovered. Even if it had been, the photo would have long ago been destroyed by the water and the elements. 

He only makes a small noise of surprise as he looks at it. He’s certain, well fairly so, that flashbacks aren’t supposed to work like that. 

At all. 

He makes it a point after that to start collecting things from his flashbacks and collects them in his rooms in the Tower. After three weeks, he gathers quite a treasure trove of artifacts from his life before including small things from his childhood, a pin his mother used to wear, Howard Stark’s goggles, one of the USO girl’s gloves, and then there are the other things. He has Dugan’s hat, and Bucky’s dog tags. He doesn’t wonder what they think of these things that have gone missing, because he instantly remembers once he takes the item. He stood there one day in the cold Austrian forest with his hand perched over Dugan’s hat. He saw the moment in time when things changed, when he took the hat and what would happen. 

He only takes it if it has no long term consequences. He situates each item on a new book shelf he installs himself. He calls it his memories shelves. No one else has to see it. Not a lot of people come to his rooms, anyway. He still hasn’t figured out how to get a lock of Peggy’s hair. It would be nice.

Everything goes swimmingly until he decides why can’t he change the past? If he’s bouncing between then and now, he should be able to change things. He should be able to save Bucky. He can’t. No matter how he tries, he can never get to Bucky on time. No matter what he does, Bucky always dies. He even orders Bucky not to participate in the mission once, he still ends up dying. His memories just shift and change. 

So, what the hell is the point if he’s going to pop here and there to no real purpose? He sits in his rooms and stares again, hands on knees. He just stares. He doesn’t move, he doesn’t know how long he sits for, how many hours, days pass. He knows days pass though, because he watches the light shift about the room, he gets up a few times to use the toilet and then just sits back down again. He doesn’t eat, he doesn’t sleep.

He just sits.

Eventually he moves again and starts to live again, but he’s not sure he’s really living, not now. He’s busy visiting the past over and again. His shelves of things past grows and he spends time admiring them, it is like his own personal museum of artifacts. No one comes into his rooms so things are safely hidden even in plain sight. His flashbacks which aren't really flashbacks continue but not in front of anyone. When he considers his shelves, there's a small part of him that thinks he might be off his rocker. He thinks he might be insane. He recalls the first few days after he woke up in the fake recovery room, how loud and bright everything was. There were people in and out of his room, checking him and updating him. Each face and name blurred together in a whirlwind of information. There were therapists and psychologists and behavioral something or others. Every one tested him and everyone pondered him, he often wondered if he'd stepped into some kind of odd wonderland. 

The dreams started then, and they terrified him. He'd wake up tangled in sheet, soaked in sweat, but freezing cold. Only a shower would settle his beating heart to a saner rate. Only a shower would dissuade the images from assaulting him. Eventually the dreams faded and only came once in a while. Eventually, he became attuned to them in his sleep, learned to control a little of his own memories as they flashed in his head because the therapists taught him sleep and dreaming techniques. One thing that the therapist couldn't teach him was to make the memories stay where they belonged, in the past. He picks up a small wooden toy from the shelf. He remembers losing it, now he knows where it went. He took it from the small flat he grew up in nearly a century ago. He took it and brought it back with him. 

At least he can have these small things to comfort him, at least he can pretend for those minutes he's caught in the past and that none of this future actually happened - or is happening. Or whatever it is supposed to be. His head hurts sometimes. He sleeps it off.

The next time it happens every little secret he holds so dear to his chest and away from everyone gets revealed in the most horrible way possible. It all starts with Tony. 

After many apologies, Tony finally convinces him to go out on another date. 

"You had a backup plan," Steve had said when Tony asked him for the sixth time.

"It's what you do," Tony came back and opened his hands, then clapped him on the back in some feigned camaraderie. "Come on, Bucky wasn't there as your back up back in the day? Your saving grace, your get out of Dodge?"

"Bucky didn't have to be-."

"What? Every date with Steve Rogers just happend to be one from heaven above?" Tony knocked him in the bicep. It felt more like a peck from a bird, but Steve pretended it hurt and rubbed at his shoulder. "Every girl and guy you went out with was a knock out?"

"First of all, you didn't date guys in my day," Steve stopped him with a finger to his mouth. "Yes, there were gay people back in the day, but it wasn't like anyone was really open about it, like today."

"I'll give you that one, but we're going to have a walk down memory lane to see the under culture of New York back in the 20s and 30s some day."

Steve sighed and had said, "Second, I didn't really date."

"You didn't date."

"No."

"Not at all?" Tony tilted his head, and there was a moment Steve recognized as the absolute distress this revelation brought to him. "Seriously, I knew you were a shy, adorable guy when you weren't." He waved at Steve to indicate his current stature. "But no one?"

"No, Tony, no one." Steve left it at that. "And please don't feel sorry for me. I'm a lucky guy, a very lucky guy." He'd left it at that and thought about his shelf from the past. When Tony asked him a seventh time, he said yes.

The date ends up being in the penthouse. All the other team members conveniently disappear for the night. When Steve arrives on the deck of the penthouse, strings of lights illuminate his way toward a small bistro table laid out with appetizers. A bottle of wine chills next to it, and glasses reflect the light. When he wanders over to the table and glances toward the cityscape with its own the glittering lights, the sky above, it all mixes together and reminds him of some of the impressionistic artists he used to study so long ago. He's stilled by the beauty, and then Tony arrives. He appears from the side of the deck with two flutes of champagne. The music starts and it is soft and sweet and nothing like the music that Tony regularly listens to in the workshop. He's wearing a tux and Steve feels woefully under dressed. He looks down at his khakis, his plaid shirt without a tie, and his simple loafers. Tony sparkles like the rest of the balcony.

"I didn't-I should have-." Steve points behind him, like he might bolt, and he feels like he should. While everything is subtle and light, it overwhelms him and his heart, which normal resides nicely in his chest, forces its way into his throat. He chokes it down but his hands sweat and he actually can no longer feel his legs. 

Tony crosses the space between them and the music continues as he sways next to Steve. He finds himself moving in the languid rhythm with Tony and his pulse both runs too fast and with an intoxicating beat. Tony offers him the champagne and he waits like he doesn't know what to do with it. It is Tony who lifts the glass and clicks it to Steve's, and then sips with a leer to his eyes. Steve brings the glass to his lips, cannot feel it, cannot taste the champagne as it drains down his throat. Before he realizes it, Tony lifts the glass from his hand and places it on the table with his own. Tony steps into Steve's personal space, holds Steve's hand and then places it on his shoulder, then entwines his other hand in Steve's as he slides his hand around Steve's hips. His hand on Steve's hip set fire down Steve's thigh and he gulps back a sigh as he feels the rocking and flowing of Tony's body as he sidles up against Steve.

"Relax, move into it," Tony whispers in his ear.

Steve follows Tony's lead and thinks about stepping on feet and how big and uncoordinated he feels, but Tony's graceful motion assist him, makes him feel like he knows how to dance, like this is right and good. His heart keeps up its jagged feel in his chest but it doesn't hurt, it doesn't frighten him, instead it feels perfect and tender. 

"You’re so strong, solid, like a shield," Tony murmurs and he presses his head against Steve's shoulder, and when he does Steve's on fire and his nerves are blaring but he keeps the slow rhythm up. Just as Tony turns up his face to Steve, just as he feels the warmth of Tony's breath across his throat and down the nape of his neck, it happens. 

It throws him, bashes him against a solid surface and he falls to the floor. When he opens his eyes he's on the damned train again where Bucky died. He hears screaming, calls for help and for one desperate moment nothing makes sense. Then it all falls into place and he's rushing to pick up the shield and tossing it to stop the soldier coming after them. This time he'll do it; this time he'll save Bucky. When he turns to the split open side of the train and looks he wavers, nearly losing his balance. It isn't Bucky on the train; it isn't Bucky hanging off the side of the train. 

"Tony."

His shouts are lost in the blast of the wind buffeting the side of the train as it races down the tracks. Tony hangs on the side of the train. He's still in his damned tuxedo and he's shivering already. 

"Steve," Tony yells and his face looks torn between terror and confusion. 

Steve's heart drops from his chest and he cannot even think of not saving Tony. This isn't the past, this is now, and he cannot understand how Tony is here, in his flashback. He tries not to think about how this happened, but he knows, he knows this is his fault. He'd never been touching anyone before when he fell into a flashback, when an episode happened. He puts all that aside, how and why, and he inches out onto the ripped open side of the train. Tony hangs off the side, from a corroded bar, just like Bucky, just as far away as Bucky.

Steve pushes it, goes farther out, where it is dangerous, where he might not be able to pull back from the edge. He reaches out and begs, "Take my hand, take my hand."

"Damn it, fuck, what the hell?"

The wind whips at his face and prickles and burns. He sees Tony's hands redden from the cold. "Just take my hand." _Please_ he begs _Just take my hand!_. 

Tony attempts to release the bar with one hand, but the train jerks and the side panel bangs against the train car. He seizes the cracking bar and huddles as close as he can get to the mutilated train side. Steve stretches as far as he’s able. The wind batters them and he shivers against it.

"Take my hand, please, take my hand," Steve cries out and pleads. He cannot lose Tony, not like this, not now. "Please." The wind stings his eyes and he feels the tears wetting them chill and freeze on his face. He wants to move heaven and earth, he'll walk through damned hell and back to stop this from happening now, he won't lose Tony. Not this way, not today. "Give me your fucking hand."

Tony releases his hold and swings over to Steve, reaching out to try and grab onto Steve's offered hand. The bar yawns against the train, creaks, and then cracks like lightening hitting the train itself. It breaks free just as Steve grasps the edge of Tony's hand. Tony's body swings like a wrecking ball against the side of the train and then yanks on Steve's perilous hold. Steve judders against the train panel, nearly letting go in the process. Tony hangs by Steve's left hand; he tries to gather the strength to bring him toward his body. He heaves and yells, "Grab onto the train."

Tony nods and, as Steve hauls him upward, he clasps against the side panel and then pushes. The imbalance causes Steve to pitch backwards. He falls toward the edge of the train just as Tony claws onto his waist. Steve slides onto the very edge of the train floor. He's now hanging from the floor of the train, the vast ravine below and the train wheels rushing against them. He has one hand grasping inside the train, keeping them from plunging down to the abyss. With the other hand, he grabs Tony under the arm and hoists him up against his chest. Tony crawls up against him, holding on. The train curves around the bend and Steve knows he only has seconds; the train is going into a tunnel. He clamors up and rolls them over on the floor as the tunnel darkens and Tony shivers in his arms.

"What the hell?" Tony says into the dark and the next thing Steve knows they are laying on the deck of the penthouse looking up at the strings of lights. The fear, the anxiety of it all comes over him like a wash of panic. He can't even really make out what Tony rants about because of what just happened. "What the hell? Are you - where - how the hell did that happen?"

Steve blinks a few times as if the dark and the lights are inverted. "I just - I - it was a flashback?"

Tony slaps him a few times and clamors off of him. "What? Are you seriously using that as your excuse? That was not a flashback - flashbacks are not full body, full sense experiences like that, and you don't share. You do not bring a buddy along." Tony stands up and paces around as Steve tries to sit up. He's dizzy and cannot find his footing. 

"What?"

"That is not how flashbacks work." Tony snarls at Steve.

Flinching away from Tony, Steve says, "I didn't, well, I didn't think so."

"What the hell? This has happened before?" Tony hisses.

"Maybe, a yes?"

"How many times? Once, twice?"

"A few?" Steve says and stands up. He dusts away the snow and ice from his clothes. Tony looks a mess, but he's all the sexier for it. 

"Few as in three or way more than three?"

Steve looks away, he feels like he's close to three years old. He's never seen Tony this pissed off and galled at anyone. "The last one."

"Way more than three? Jesus f-ing Christ, what the hell were you thinking, Rogers?" Tony slaps his forehead and scrubs his nails through his hair. "We need to talk to Bruce or maybe freaking Thor. Thor sounds right. This sounds like some kind of freak ass magic."

"Magic?" 

"Stop that."

"Stop it?"

"Oh for Christ's sake did you hit your head, come on," Tony waves for him to follow and they enter the penthouse. "How many times has this happened?"

Steve holds the back of his neck and says, "Maybe - I don't know. You can see my shelves of the past."

"Shelves of the past?" Tony looks at him open mouthed.

"Yeah, I started to bring stuff back a while ago," Steve murmurs. "You want to see them?"

"Like some kind of souvenirs?"

"Something like that," Steve says and starts toward the elevator. 

That is when everyone finds out what Steve has been hiding in his apartment. In less than an hour everyone is crowded around his memories shelves looking at his personal museum of things from his past. He pales when they all start to touch everything and it is Bruce who ushers them a distance away. Steve settles in the corner of the couch, where he normally sits to just gaze at his mementos. The clutch of his team clusters around and discusses whether or not it is magic or science. Natasha drills them about the current state of affairs concerning the experiments Tony and Bruce have been running. Thor and Bruce debate the merits of magic in this regard but it is Clint who walks over to Steve and sits next to him, not quite touching.

"How was the date?"

Steve startles. "It was-." He stops and thinks of all the work and preparation Tony went through to romance Steve. He feels the heat of it on his cheeks, but immediately wants to hide. Not because he's embarrassed, but because he ruined it all. He mumbles. "It was good, fine until-."

"Until the world kind of went askew."

"Yeah."

"I kind of know how that happens," Clint says and lays a companionable arm around Steve's shoulders. He stares at Natasha as he talks. "Don't give up on it. Never give up. He went through a lot to plan for it."

Steve nods. 

"Tony might be an ass sometimes, but he really wants this."

"He does?" Steve asks with a cocked eyebrow. "How do you know?"

"I see things," Hawkeye says and points to his eyes and then to Tony. "I see things." He hits Steve on the back and walks off.

Tony appears at his side and Steve wonders if he faded away, but it really is only because he's a little out of it. "Talked to Bruce and Thor. We should do some tests. Think you're up for that?"

"Sure, I'm fine." Steve straightens his shoulders to prepare for a battery of analyses.

Tony peers down at him and studies him for a moment before asking, "Tell me, really?"

"Really."

"You just re-enacted the moment of the death of your best friend and you're raring to go?" Tony asks.

"Not exactly the same," Steve says and tries not to meet Tony's gaze, but it is hard and he fails so he looks. He sees those eyes, which pull him in and comfort him without a word. "Bucky died." He grabs hold of Tony's lax hand on the couch. "You didn't." They are sitting close on the couch, hips touching, legs aligned. Shoulder to shoulder. He wants to say thank God, Tony didn't die. He wants to embrace Tony and hold him close and keep him secure.

"No, I didn't." Tony says and lifts his hand to slide a finger along Steve's cheekbone, down to his jaw. He stops with his hand perched under Steve's jaw and then they move together, so small a gesture, but it is enough and their lips touch. Steve hitches but presses forward, exploring Tony's taste, his smell, his feel. He tastes like metal and smoke, he smells like rich cologne, and he feels like home. Steve touches his hands to Tony's hips, glides upward to his waist. He can feel Tony vibrate beneath him like a string from a violin singing under his hands. He wants all the rest of the team to disappear; he wants to feel Tony under him. He opens his mouth and allows Tony entrance. 

Something pulls on him and he yanks away from Tony. He feels it growing in the pit of his stomach; he's always felt it the moment before he flashes back. He jumps away from Tony and he's plummeting away and Tony screaming for him. Seconds later he finds himself on the outside of the single plane beating on it as it flies from the belly of Schmidt's plane. He slides against the tube of the fuselage of the plane and nearly falls off. He lets his muscles and his strength take over and the next thing he knows he's in the cockpit and navigating the damned thing back into the plane. When it jerks to a landing, the forward motion propels him against the dash but he halts just before he knocks himself out. When he pushes up on the cockpit door, he rolls over and is suddenly back in his living room with his team hovering over him. 

"It just happened again, didn't it?" Tony says as he kneels next to Steve's side. He struggles to get up, but Bruce places a hand on his shoulder and holds him down with surprising strength. 

"Let's take it easy, okay?"

"I'm fine." Steve tries again, but this time the world does a nice loop around him and he clutches onto Tony so that he doesn't fall over. 

"Come on, let's get you to the lab," Tony says and nods to Bruce.

By the time they end up in Tony's lab Steve suffers through another flashback and he's weak in the knees and can't focus in the bright light anymore. Thor's booming voice hurts and he curls up on the couch trying to muffle the barrage of stimuli. Someone finds a blanket and covers him. He tugs it over his shoulder and peeks out to thank Natasha. She lays a hand on his shoulder and pats him without saying a word. He listens to them debate and argue about the situation. Eventually, they have Jane Foster on Skype and both Tony and Thor discuss the case for over an hour. It lulls him to sleep and when he finally comes around again, he turns to see only Tony sitting across from him in a chair. He has a circular projection around him and he's working. His fingers dance through the air and he looks like he's conducting an opera.

Steve smiles, but something hits him in the chest when he realizes he's losing, he's falling, and he cannot find his way back. "Am I going crazy?"

Tony looks at him, then flicks his hands and the whole projection disappears. He furrows his brows and considers Steve. "You might already be a little crazy, Captain, but you're not crazy. From what we can tell, JARVIS scanned you by the way, nothing invasive, well not really, but we can find tachyon particle residue, or what we think is probably tachyons."

"What?" Steve sits up and rubs at his eyes. The blanket pools at his feet. "Is that good?"

"What it means is that something having to do with space-time is kind of wrapped up around you. Thor's been contacting Jane and Asgard to find out if we can get some help from there," Tony says. "I contacted Richards but he's being a jerk about it, wants to do really invasive tests. I told him to go fuck himself with his tentacle like arms."

Steve screws up his face and asks, "What? Can you please just speak English once?"

"Thor might have an answer. We're waiting."

"Thank you, that must have been difficult for you."

"You have no idea," Tony replies. "Bruce put it together. He doesn't think it's science, he thinks it is more magical even with the tachyon particles."

"Not sure what that means, but if you think it’s the way to go?" Steve asks. He picks up the blanket and puts it on this lap.

Tony jumps up and joins Steve on the couch. He spreads the blanket over their lap and says, "I can think of some fun we can have while we wait?" Tony leans against Steve and the weight and heat of him is welcome. 

He wants nothing more than to touch him, explore him. He knows the danger now, and moves slightly away. "I can't Tony, not until we know. I can't lose you to the past."

"You won't," Tony clasps his arm and pulls him closer. "Just trust me, I'll hold you here."

The words, the feel of Tony next to him lures him and he shifts to encircle his arms around Tony, to hold him and experience him again. They nudge at one another, kisses and lips against arms, throat, ear, and finally mouth. 

The solidity against him brings his mind to an alertness, brings his emotions to stir, opens him up and lays him bare. He strums his fingers up and down Tony's back, feeling the shoulders, the blades, and then down to the ribs, and finally to circle the waist and feel the jut of the hips. It is wonderful and different and it is everything he always wanted. He feels grounded and present for the first time in days, for the first time in months. Tony mouths along Steve's throat and tugs at his shirt collar, tasting him and Steve realizes that Tony's tux has been abandoned. He only has his t-shirt on and the pants. He pushes Steve down onto the couch and prowls over him, his muscles moving like a feline's. He nips and licks along Steve's chest as he opens up his shirt and pulls up his t-shirt. Steve's panting and hitching his breath. 

Something grabs him in the pit of his stomach and he hisses and shoves it away. The images, the memories of yesterday fade away as the present comes into vivid focus again. He cups his hands on Tony's face and drags him to his mouth to share another kiss, to devour him and taste him. It feels like more than living, it feels like being present in the here and now. 

He hears it before he feels it this time. A crack like thunder and the distinct smell of ozone assaults him. He can't deny it, it overwhelms him and his only thought is to get Tony away, to save him from the dangers. He brings his arms downward and pushes out to get Tony off of him. Tony tumbles away and falls to the floor. He grimaces and is about to lash out at Steve when a voice stops them both.

"The All-Father has brought my mother to meet with you," Thor says and walks into the workshop with a tall elegant woman in tow. The entire team re-appears like there's a door bell that alerts everyone to the comings and goings in the Tower. Steve frowns, of course, it must be JARVIS.

Steve rights his clothes and nods to the woman. "Hello, ma'am."

She smiles and while her eyes are warm, she is also critical and weighs what she sees, evaluates it. She is no fool. "You have seen the past and are held by it." She walks around him, studying, peering. It sends shivers up his spine and goose bumps on his flesh. "You are not anchored here, but are fastened to the past. The past does not haunt you, but it is you. You have no way to stay here. You will diminish into the past."

“Is it magic?” Bruce asks.

“It is magic of his own design.”

“I’m not – I don’t have that ability.”

Frigga scoffs. “Everyone has that ability, son.”

"Thor?" Tony says as he stands up and he points at Frigga and then back at Steve. "What the hell?"

"She is not Hel, she is my mother and is here to see the Captain's destiny."

"He does not have one, I am afraid," Frigga says as she stops and looks up into Steve's features. "You are lost; you are a man out of time."

"What does that even mean?" Tony says.

"It means I am not supposed to be here," Steve whispers and looks down at his empty hands. 

"It means, dear boy, that you have anchored yourself to the past. That you have collected from the past all things to define yourself, but you have not found yourself in the present, you are lost to it and so you cannot survive in it. You will fade to the past and disappear entirely." Frigga reaches out a gentle hand and graces his cheek with a light touch. "You have so much that is required of you here, if you do not, if you are lost, then so many things will be in ruin."

"What? That's what you come here to say? That isn't helpful. Thor," Tony pleads, but it is Bruce who chimes in and says, "Is there any way for Steve to correct this, is he lost to us already?"

"He must say good bye to the past and leave it where it belongs. Find his way to the present and re- define himself here today. It is not an easy answer, nothing in life worth living is. He must choose. What do you choose Son of Rogers?"

Everyone turns to him then and he feels like he's the same boy, the one who had been beaten and left in one alley way after another. He needs to be alone now, he needs think. 

Surprisingly it is Natasha this time that comes to his rescue. "Let's give the Captain some time to think?" The group filters out and Steve ends up following them, trailing them until he gets off the elevator on his floor. Tony stays with him but remains silent as Steve enters his living room and goes to stare at the shelves of the past. He touches each and every thing that came out of his past. He picks up Dugan's hat, the goggles from Tony's father, and finally the pocket watch with Peggy's photo. It is his life; it is all he has left.

Tony reads his mind and says and echoes the words that he'd heard once before. "You won’t be alone." Threading his fingers through Steve's hand, Tony stands next to him and gazes at the shelves, the items of Steve's life. 

"Will you help me?" Steve says and it hurts to think about what he's about to do. 

"Yes," Tony replies and all of his gaiety has left. He's pained because of Steve's sorrow. 

Retrieving a box from the bedroom, Steve removes all of the items and stores them away. The very last item is the pocket watch and he looks up at Tony and goes to place it in the box. Tony stops his hand and says, "No, Frigga can't mean everything."

"Everything," Steve says and his voice cracks. Tony pulls out the watch. "Tony."

"She didn't say anything about you destroying everything. You can give it away, you can give me part of your past, let me hold it for you."

Steve folds his hands over Tony's and then splays open his hand and allows Tony to take it. "Don't let me see it again." Tony slips it into his pocket.

Tony nods and they finish putting everything else in the box. Closing up the box, Steve picks up the box and they leave his floor. In silence they board the elevator and hit the button to go to the basement level with the incinerator. When they exit the elevator and go to the incinerator room, Tony tries to take the box away from Steve. He shakes his head. 

"This is something I have to do, this is something I need to say goodbye to."

Tony points to the room. "Do you want me to?"

"No, I can." Steve is grateful that Tony doesn't protest. He nods and shoulders through the doors to enter into the room. He opens the box and touches each item again. The small toy from his childhood, the ball Bucky once gave him, the hat, and the dog tags. He closes his eyes and whispers a goodbye. 

"It is gone, it is gone, it is gone," he murmurs, chanting to convince himself that he can leave it where it belongs. Gone. Past. Yesterday. He inhales once, holds it, and then lets the air out. When he opens his eyes, everything is gone. The box is empty.

He stands there and stares at the void of his life, feels the pitch of pain low in his belly and stands firm against it, squeezing his nails into his palms. He swallows down his fear, and builds up his resolution as he does. Ready, he walks out of the room and abandons the empty box. Tony waits for him. They ride the elevator back up to the penthouse, hands clasped but not speaking to one another.

When they step out of the elevator into the shadowed rooms, Steve stops and the profundity of leaving, of saying farewell slams into him and he collapses. Tony follows him down to the floor, holds him close and keeps him safe. 

It is Tony’s warmth and comfort which keeps him here, which anchors him, and helps him define himself. It is Tony’s brashness and arrogance and chaos which moors him to the present. He feels the bindings of the past loosen and fray, as the bonding to the present weaves and tightens and becomes his reality. 

Tony speaks to him, but he doesn’t need the words to know. He only needs to feel his physicality, his solidity to understand. He’s here, he’s now. The disorder has dissipated and his life has refashioned into a new place, a new time. He accepts it as he tastes the lips, the mouth, the throat of the one he loves.

He is home, in the here and now.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for your time - now back to my regularly scheduled writing. Follow me on [tumblr](http://winterstar95.tumblr.com) if you are interested in my writing updates or other liberal stuff.


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